I'm not sure what a draft like 137 is. It seems like a draft of a personal statement.

I think your experience in the Navy serves as a great vessel for your essay.

That said, in a lot of places, I think that you would be well served by the advice of my high school english teachers "show don't tell".

You do this to some degree. The creak of the ship as it descends, your collective celebration afterward.

But the part I thought I was going to be the most impressed by was you.

I was promised that you learned how to be a leader, witnessed the awesome power of teamwork, and had your commitment to service reaffirmed.

Reading this, I craved to see a tangible example of each of those things, ideally an example that I could imagine, but could never myself have experienced. The closest you came to showing how you learned to lead was saying you pushed yourself to be a top performer on training and exams. Then you said the transition to a leadership role was smooth because your actions deserved to be emulated. I can say all of those things about my job in my University’s cafeteria, but one of our jobs involved substantially more responsibility, training, danger, education, and effort. And it was not my caf job.

So, are there any stories you can tell about your leadership? Was it always smooth? If yes, what was it that you did that was so emulateable that it was so smooth? If not, how did you handle it? You are in a better position to ask the right questions here than me, but the point is, use stories. Your statement is best where you do and weakest where you just make statements.

I think your statement delivers on your love of the service. That's good. I'm not sure it is as convincing as it could be in the parts that sell you.

edcat wrote:I'm not sure what a draft like 137 is. It seems like a draft of a personal statement.

I think your experience in the Navy serves as a great vessel for your essay.

That said, in a lot of places, I think that you would be well served by the advice of my high school english teachers "show don't tell".

You do this to some degree. The creak of the ship as it descends, your collective celebration afterward.

But the part I thought I was going to be the most impressed by was you.

I was promised that you learned how to be a leader, witnessed the awesome power of teamwork, and had your commitment to service reaffirmed.

Reading this, I craved to see a tangible example of each of those things, ideally an example that I could imagine, but could never myself have experienced. The closest you came to showing how you learned to lead was saying you pushed yourself to be a top performer on training and exams. Then you said the transition to a leadership role was smooth because your actions deserved to be emulated. I can say all of those things about my job in my University’s cafeteria, but one of our jobs involved substantially more responsibility, training, danger, education, and effort. And it was not my caf job.

So, are there any stories you can tell about your leadership? Was it always smooth? If yes, what was it that you did that was so emulateable that it was so smooth? If not, how did you handle it? You are in a better position to ask the right questions here than me, but the point is, use stories. Your statement is best where you do and weakest where you just make statements.

I think your statement delivers on your love of the service. That's good. I'm not sure it is as convincing as it could be in the parts that sell you.

Draft like 137.. just meant that this was about my 137th draft of this PS. I was exaggerating, but that is what it feels like. I think this topic can work, but as you rightly point out, I'm struggling to sell myself well. Sorry if that was confusing.

NavyNuke wrote:Draft like 137 at this point. All thoughts appreciated. Please don't quote.

Hey dude, as one vet to another (and as someone who received a lot of expert assistance conceptualizing/"theme-ing"/proofing a PS that got me into a T13), let me throw some freebee advice your way--take it or leave it:

I highly recommend using your PS to expand your appeal as an applicant, nor reiterate ad nauseam your military credentials. Your typical adcomm gets that you're a vet. That's cool and all, but the trap is avoiding a snap judgement that your application package appears one-dimentional. Expand on your interests. Use the PS as an opportunity to make yourself appear multi-dimensional with a broad range of interests/talents/capabilities/hobbies/life experiences. That's not to say your can't use your military background as a springboard into other interests, but don't beat Dean XXXX over the cranium repeatedly with your ex-military status. So, as hard as this might be (and sunk cost fallacy goes hard--I get it), recommend you scrap this and start again with a different topic.

Good luck man...feel free to PM me if need be and also to join us in the vet thread.

NavyNuke wrote:Draft like 137 at this point. All thoughts appreciated. Please don't quote.

Hey dude, as one vet to another (and as someone who received a lot of expert assistance conceptualizing/"theme-ing"/proofing a PS that got me into a T13), let me throw some freebee advice your way--take it or leave it:

I highly recommend using your PS to expand your appeal as an applicant, nor reiterate ad nauseam your military credentials. Your typical adcomm gets that you're a vet. That's cool and all, but the trap is avoiding a snap judgement that your application package appears one-dimentional. Expand on your interests. Use the PS as an opportunity to make yourself appear multi-dimensional with a broad range of interests/talents/capabilities/hobbies/life experiences. That's not to say your can't use your military background as a springboard into other interests, but don't beat Dean XXXX over the cranium repeatedly with your ex-military status. So, as hard as this might be (and sunk cost fallacy goes hard--I get it), recommend you scrap this and start again with a different topic.

Good luck man...feel free to PM me if need be and also to join us in the vet thread.

Thank you for the input! I go back and forth on heading in a different direction. I'm just fearful that if I don't write about this topic that Dean XXXX is going to say, "Huh, submarine nuclear operator.. that could have been interesting to hear more about." And if I'm going to beat Dean XXXX over the head with anything, vet status can't be the worst thing in the world to do it with. But I totally get your point. I will keep brainstorming other ideas.